On Education, Once again.

I read this interesting interview with Oxford Academic, Craig Jeffery here: He makes an interesting observation that education alone is not a passport to social mobility. And class still mattters. While one would think that equal education is one of the surest steps towards social mobility, to erase historical biases etched into the bloodstream of generations, it turns out that not only in India, but across US and UK as well, that a good education is a necessary but insufficient basis for mobility.

I earned a post graduate degree in Patent Law recently. The course equipped me with all the knowledge on the subject but gave me very little to understand what I can do with it. Apart from the adage of Knowledge-For-Knowledge's sake - which I really like, it has given me little else. Jeffery puts this across neatly in another context as "....Education provides a sense of entitlement but not always the problem-solving skills that allow young people to start businesses".

On another note, the newspapers headlines of today indicates that a daughter of a stone quarry worker in Bangalore is headed to the prestigious National Law school to pursue her undergraduate degree. Given her intelligence as well as a capacity for hard work, I am sure she would top the graduating class five years on. But at campus interviews, wouldn't corporate India favour someone else in this field.....someone who perhaps has a lineage of lawyers, an unmatched network of pedigreed contacts etc? If it does not, then I can surely say education is a passport to social mobility. If not then the prestigious education would have taught her to "lower her ambitions. To quote a rather pessimistic note from the interview "....Class is crucial. If you are from the right class, there is always a good “fallback job” available when you leave education. If you are from a poorer background, you are much less likely to be able to turn your university degree into a good job."

Making sense of Digtal Intimacy

Read an article in the New York Times this morning.

Among other things, it helped me understand why Twitter makes sense to all the people who use it. Analyses if the internet has actually raised the Dunbar number of 150. Maintains that even if one has 200 facebook friends, the circle with whom you maintain close connections amongst them will always be a much smaller number.

I used to be especially puzzled because I never got hooked on to any of the ever changing flavours of the internet. Way back in 1998 or so, when MSN messenger was introduced, I was super excited, but gradually that enthu wilted. Even the subsequent voice chat and webcam versions made me more lazier. Not to mention Skype. The telephone-will-do attitude thus limited my knowledge to that of a close circle of family and friends. Not much room for maintaining 'acquaintances'.

Email I loved and still remains the most utilised means of communication.

I did go about creating accounts on twitter and facebook and reunion and classmates ...under various pseudonyms, but never got enthused. It is not that I am trying to guard my privacy at all costs...its just that I find it burdensome to 'maintain' all those outlets. Its after all a substantial amount of time, which doesnt result in anything meanignful for me.

All my nieces think I am a granny in this aspect. But I shall soon start a group on Facebook called Non Facebook users...if it already doesnt exist

An early morning lesson ...in biology

As S and I were brushing, we found a small intruder invading our peace. A teeny weeny lizard peeped out from the shelf. I was way too scared, but managed to get the husband to take some concrete action. He fetched the morning's TOI and arrested the little being against the wall before hitching it on to page one. And then it was delivered on a flight out of the balcony. Peace at last.

But S noticed that a part of the little L's tail was still left behind on our basin....and it was moving...appa, it does not have eyes how will it know where to go? Where is the tails brain? If the lizard can grow backs its tail, can the tail also grow back the lizard?

Aaargh....! I must say that his interest in multiplication (maths and otherwise) is increasing at a very alarming rate.

The Kannada Teacher

I went to meet my seven year old son's Kannada teacher at school. This was the first time I was meeting her, even though my son has been under her tutelage for more than a year now. I began the conversation by saying that we are not native Kannada speakers and that even though I can read Kannada, I have trouble speaking it.

She stopped me short and said "The first thing I tell parents is that they should not go about advertising their lack of knowledge in front of their kids. This demoralises the children into thinking that even when their parents have difficulty with a subject, how will they surmount it?"

I saw tremendous sense in her words. So whenever my son has any query, I have decided to say " Lets find out..."..